Bible Difficulties (81 page)

4. Judges 13:20 states: "For it came about when the flame went up from the altar toward heaven, that the angel of Yahweh ascended in the flame of the altar. When Manoah and his wife saw this, they fell on their faces to the ground." Verses 22-23 complete the identification of the Angel with God: "So Manoah said to his wife, `We shall surely die, for we have seen God!' But his wife said to him, Ìf Yahweh had desired to kill us, He would not have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering from our hands.'"

From this survey of the biblical evidence, we must conclude that Scripture does indeed teach the doctrine of the Trinity, even though it does not use that precise term.

Furthermore, we ought to observe that the concept of God as one in essence but three in centers of consciousness--what the Greek church referred to as three
hypostases
and the Latin church as
personae
--is absolutely unique in the history of human thought. No other culture or philosophical movement ever came up with such an idea of God as this--an idea that remains very difficult for our finite minds to grasp. Yet the inability to comprehend fully the richness and fullness of God's nature as embraced in the Trinity should not furnish any solid ground for skepticism as to its truth. For if we are to accept and believe only what we can fully understand, then we are hopelessly beyond redemption. Why so? Because we shall never fully understand how God could love us enough to send His only Son to earth in order to die for our sins and become our Savior.

If we cannot accept any idea that we do not completely understand, then how can we believe John 3:16? How can we receive the assurance of the gospel and be saved?

367

Mark

Who was high priest when David ate the showbread--Abiather or Ahimelech?

Mark 2:26 quotes Jesus as asking His hearers whether they had never read what David did, when he and his men were hungry and entered the sanctuary at Nob to beg for food, in the time of Abiathar the high priest (1 Sam. 21:1-6). As a matter of fact, however, it was with Abiathar's father, Ahimelech, that David had dealings; for Ahimelech was really the high priest at the time of that episode.

Did Jesus err when He referred to the wrong high priest? A careful examination of Mark 2:26 reveals that Christ did not actually imply that Abiathar was already high priest at the time of David's visit. He simply said,
"Epi Abiathar archiereos
," which means "in the time of Abiathar the high priest." As things turned out, bloody King Saul soon had Ahimelech and the entire priestly community of Nob massacred by Doeg the Edomite (1

Sam. 22:18-19); and Abiathar the son of Ahimelech was the only one fortunate enough to escape. He fled to join David (v. 20) and served as his priest all through David's years of wandering and exile. Naturally he was appointed high priest by David after David became king, and he shared the high priesthood with Zadok, Saul's appointee, until David's death. Under these circumstances it was perfectly proper to refer to Abiathar as the high priest--even though his appointment as such came somewhat later, after the incident at Nob--just as it would be proper to introduce an anecdote by saying, "Now when King David was a shepherd boy," even though David was not actually a king at the time he was a shepherd boy.

According to W.F. Arndt and F.W. Gingrich (
A Greek-English Lexicon of the New
Testament
[Chicago: University of Chicago, 1957], p. 286),
epi
with the genitive simply means "in the time of"; and that is the meaning that applies in Mark 2:26 (the same construction as Acts 11:28 ["in the time of Claudius"] and Heb. 1:2 ["in the time of the last of these days" (
ep' eschatou ton hemeron touton
)]). The episode did happen "in the time of" Abiathar; he was not only alive but actually present when the event took place, and he very shortly afterward became high priest as a result of Saul's murdering his father, Ahimelech. If Jesus' words are interpreted in the way he meant them, there is absolutely no variance with historical fact.

How can Mark 8:12-13 be reconciled with Matthew 12:38-39, concerning a sign of
messiahship for Christ's generation?

Mark 8:11-13 reads: "And the Pharisees came out and began to argue with Him, seeking from Him a sign from heaven, to test Him. And sighing deeply in His spirit, He said,

`Why does this generation seek for a sign? Truly I say to you, no sign shall be given to this generation.' And leaving them, He again embarked and went away to the other side"

(NASB). The passage in Matthew 12:38-39 reads as follows: "Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered Him, saying, `Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.' But He answered and said to them, Àn evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; an yet 368

no sign shall be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet'" (NASB). (Our Lord then goes on to indicate that Jonah's three days in the belly of the whale were a type of Jesus'

three days in the tomb, the interval between His burial and the Easter morning Resurrection.) It should be noted that this particular sign was not something He granted them on that same occasion when they requested it, but it was long deferred until Easter.

In effect, therefore, He refused to give them any sign at all, at least at the time of their request.

It is noteworthy that Luke 11:29 repeats substantially the same words as in Matthew 12:39, except that no further elaboration is given of what Jesus meant by the sign of Jonah. Presumably Matthew 12 and Luke 11 are referring to the same episode, except that Matthew gives a little more detail. But it is also significant that even Matthew himself records a different occasion on which the same demand was made for a sign from heaven. In Matthew 16:4 Jesus responds to this demand in largely the same way, ending up as follows: "An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and a sign will not be given to it, except the sign of Jonah.' And He left them, and went away" (NASB).

From these passages we gather that the demand for a miraculous sign from heaven was made to Jesus more than once. It may be that the Mark 8 episode parallels Matthew 16

rather than Matthew 12. But since Christ did not actually perform a sign before them at that time, it amounted to a refusal to comply with their request, because it was made out of corrupt and unspiritual motives. The only difference, then, between the Matthew 16

passage and the Mark 8 is that the reference to Jonah was omitted by Mark. As for the longer or shorter form of Jesus' sayings, there are abundant examples of this throughout the Synoptics. And there is no real discrepancy or contradiction here--any more than there would be if two students took notes of the same lecture in the same class, and and one student had fuller notes at some portions of the lecture than the other student. Yet it would be absurd to label this difference an irreconcilable contradiction. The same principle applies here.

At what hour was Christ crucified?

There is an apparent discrepancy between Mark 15:25, which states that Jesus was crucified at the "third" hour on Good Friday, and John 19:14, which indicates that the trial of Jesus was still going on at the "sixth" hour, indicating that the time of His crucifixion was later yet. John 19:14 reads: "And it was the preparation [
paraskeue
] of the Passover, and it was about the sixth hour, and he [Pilate] says to the Jews, `Behold your king!'" Obviously one of these Evangelists is in error, or else his text has been miscopied, or else the hours of the day have been numbered by John according to a different system from that followed by Mark.

It should be noted that Matthew and Luke both follow the same system as Mark; for all three indicate that as Jesus hung on the cross, a great and terrible darkness came on the earth at the sixth hour and lasted until the ninth hour, when Jesus breathed His last (Matt.

27:45; Mark 15:33; Luke 23:44). It is universally agreed that in the Synoptics the hours were numbered from sunrise, approximately 6:00 A.M. This would mean that Christ was 369

crucified at 9:00 A.M. and the preternatural darkness lasted from 12:00 A.M. to 3:00

P.M.

This apparent contradiction was unsuccessfully handled by ancient commentators through textual correction. Eusebius pointed out that the numeral "three" was indicated by capital gamma, whereas "six" was indicated by a digamma (a letter resembling our
F
).

The copyist thought he saw the extra horizontal stroke and changed "three" to "six." But this does not really solve the problem at all, because John 19:14 does not indicate the time Christ was crucified but only the time of His appearance before Pilate's judgment seat. And so even though many fine scholars have favored this textual-error theory (such as Beza, Bengel, Alford, and Farrar), it is basically unsound--and completely unnecessary.

There is no difficulty at all in the received textual reading, provided we understand that John was following the official numbering system of the Roman civil day. The evidence for a civil day that began numbering the hours right after midnight is quite decisive. Pliny the Elder (
Natural History
2.77) makes the following observation: "The day itself has been differently observed in different countries: by the Babylonians between two sunrises; by the Athenians between two sunsets; by the Umbrians from noon to noon; by the Roman priests and those who have defined the civil day, as the Egyptians also and Hipparchus, from midnight to midnight." This is confirmed by Macrobius (
Saturnalia
1.3): "the day, which the Romans have declared to begin at the sixth hour of the night."

(It should be explained that the ancients did not maintain hours of uniform length throughout the year but simply divided the interval between sunrise and sunset into twelve equal parts, known as
horae
--regardless of the season of the year.) So what would be 6:00 A.M. according to the Roman civil day (and likewise according to our modern practice) would be the first hour according to Athenian and Hebrew practice. Thus it was 9:00 A.M. when Christ's trial was winding up, and He was led away to Golgotha to be crucified. This perception of a differing system of hour numbering removes all discrepancy between John and the Synoptics.

But we may very well ask, Why should John have followed the official Roman system when he had the same cultural background as the Synoptics? The answer lies in the time and location of the composition of John's gospel. As McClellan points out, "St. John wrote his Gospel in Ephesus, the capital of the Roman province of Asia, and therefore in regard to the civil day he would be likely to employ the Roman reckoning. And as a matter of fact, he does employ it, extending his day until midnight-- John 12:1; John 20:19" (
Christian Evidences
, 1:741).

The point of the John 20:19 reference is that John reckons Christ's first appearance to the disciples in the house of John Mark as occurring in the latter part (
opsia
) of the
first
day
of the week. This proves conclusively that John did not regard the second day of the week as having begun at sunset, as the Palestinian reckoning followed by the other Evangelists would have regarded the late supper hour. (We know from the return of the two disciples from the Emmaus journey at sundown that it was already well past sundown by the time they had delivered their report to the Eleven, and thus before Jesus 370

Himself appeared to them all as a group.) The
fact
that John followed the Roman civil day is thus established; his
reason
for doing so is found in the probable place of composition of his gospel, presumably in Ephesus around A.D. 90 or shortly thereafter.

371

Luke

Was Luke mistaken about Quirinius and the census?

Luke 2:1 tells of a decree from Caesar Augustus to have the whole "world" (
oikoumene
actually means all the world under the authority of Rome) enrolled in a census report for taxation purposes. Verse 2 specifies which census taking was involved at the time Joseph and Mary went down to Bethlehem, to fill out the census forms as descendants of the Bethlehemite family of King David. This was the first census undertaken by Quirinius (or

"Cyrenius") as governor (or at least as acting governor) of Syria. Josephus mentions no census in the reign of Herod the Great (who died in 4 B.C.) but he does mention one taken by "Cyrenius" (
Antiquities
17.13.5) soon after Herod Archelaus was deposed in A.D. 6: "Cyrenius, one that had been consul, was sent by Caesar to take account of people's effects in Syria, and to sell the house of Archelaus." (Apparently the palace of the deposed king was to be sold and the proceeds turned over to the Roman government.) If Luke dates the census in 8 or 7 B.C., and if Josephus dates it in A.D. 6 or 7, there appears to be a discrepancy of about fourteen years. Also, since Saturninus (according to Tertullian in
Contra Marcion
4.19) was legate of Syria from 9 B.C., to 6 B.C., and Quintilius Varus was legate from 7 B.C. to A.D. 4 (note the one-year overlap in these two terms!), there is doubt as to whether Quirinius was ever governor of Syria at all.

By way of solution, let it be noted first of all that Luke says this was a "first" enrollment that took place under Quirinius (
haute apographe prote egeneto
). A "first" surely implies a
second
one sometime later. Luke was therefore well aware of that second census, taken by Quirinius again in A.D. 7, which Josephus alludes to in the passage cited above. We know this because Luke (who lived much closer to the time than Josephus did) also quotes Gamaliel as alluding to the insurrection of Judas of Galilee "in the days of the census taking" (Acts 5:37). The Romans tended to conduct a census every fourteen years, and so this comes out right for a first census in 7 B.C. and a second in A.D. 7.

But was Quirinius (who was called
Kyrenius
by the Greeks because of the absence of a
Q
in the Attic alphabet, or else because this proconsul was actually a successful governor of Crete and
Cyrene
in Egypt around 15 B.C.) actually governor of Syria? The Lucan text here says
hegemoneuontos tes Syrias Kyreniou
("while Cyrenius was leading--in charge of--Syria"). He is not actually called
legatus
(the official Roman title for the governor of an entire region), but the participle
hegemoneuontos
is used here, which would be appropriate to a
hegemon
like Pontius Pilate (who rated as a
procurator
but not as a
legatus
).